Unearthing. In Conversation

ALT | Modes

Traversing the intersection of theory and art practice, what began as a research project now facilitates a necessary dialog between academia, activism, and high art. In doing so, an often one-sided conversation invites the audience to take the performative effects of enslavement, colonialism, the general invisibility of Blackness, and the acting out of white innocence as a starting point to address how we think about race in a place where colonialism is rarely discussed, kept out of schoolbooks and out of the cultural archive. As Austrian artist Belinda Kazeem-Kamiński establishes an oppositional gaze, we are confronted by the methodic removal of an ethnographer’s colonial perspective. Exercising her right to self-representation, Kazeem-Kamińsk deconstructs and manipulates anthropological materials which are, in her words, "a haunting reminder of an ongoing objectification."

After the screening on Sunday, Oct. 7, please join us for light refreshments after a short walk to our community partner’s head office, HCMA Architecture + Design (400-675 West Hastings). Starting at 4:00pm, HCMA will lead a discussion around some of the themes and issues brought to light in MODES 1. Director and installation artist, Dimitri Venkov (Hymns of Muscovy) will join us via Skype from Moscow to take a deeper dive into his work.